Elephants are some of the absolute greatest sources of fashion inspiration.

Now, before you question my sanity, allow me to explain.

Every year, typically toward the end of March, Jaipur, a city in India, hosts the country’s Holi festival, or the “Festival of Colors,” to celebrate the triumph of good over evil and mark the end of the winter months and the emergence of the spring harvest.

During the celebration, people cover one another with brightly colored powders and play music. All the social norms of Indian culture are abandoned so as to carelessly rejoice in the coming joys of the spring season.

One of the most widely recognized symbols of the festival is none other than the painted elephants. The people of Jaipur decorate, paint, jewel and drape the elephants in the most extravagant fashion with some of the country’s finest paints and fabrics. The decorators will even go as far as painting the elephants’ toenails.

These ornately painted and decorated elephants are bedecked to represent royalty and are meant to inspire the people of Jaipur to abandon their inhibitions and celebrate the festival as their ancestors before them had.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. What do a bunch of elephants have to do with fashion and style? Why on earth are we discussing large mammals in this context? Am I missing something?

You see, the elephants of Jaipur and the practice of fashion go hand in hand significantly more than one might originally think. But like the paint on the elephants and what that paint represents, what we wear and what those clothes represent are some of the most beautiful forms of expression we have in our possession.

Our clothes are our bodies’ paint. Our accessories are our bodies’ jewels. The way we do our makeup and curl our hair is our bodies’ decor. And the three of them together work to create an image of who we are, where we’ve been and what we love in life.

What so many people often overlook about fashion and style is that they’re some of the most important art forms, because they’re art forms we practice every single day. Fashion isn’t simply just throwing something on and calling it a day (for most of us … although I see you, finals week). Like the Indians who paint the elephants, we make conscious, daily decisions on how we want to represent ourselves and what we wish to portray that day.

Our bodies are our canvases, and our clothes are our paint. You, whether you believe it or not, are the artist, the subject, the muse and the creator all tucked conveniently into one person. And that’s pretty dang rad.

When you look at a painting, there are always aspects your eye is drawn to before anything else. Maybe the overall painting is a landscape, but there’s a splash of sunset orange in the background that adds some unexpected boldness.

This is the perfect representation of what style and fashion are all about. Style is the landscape. Style is what makes something your own and what makes it a personal trademark. It’s what makes a friend look at a piece of clothing in a store and say, “That is so her/him.”

Fashion, on the other hand, is that splash of sunset orange in the background. Fashion is the streak of unusual boldness or modern twist to a look that’s classically you. And when you mix fashion and style together, you create a Louvre-worthy masterpiece.

The Jaipur elephants might not have a say in how they’re painted or what they’re chosen to represent, but they undoubtedly portray that sense of artistic creativity too many of us forget is part of the dressing process.

So take some tips from the tusks. Go bright. Go bold. Go inspire. Go you.